Customer Reviews

Star Trek: The Original Series: Vulcan's Glory (Star Trek (Unnumbered Paperback))

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Two forbidden love stories run parallel to one another and a young Scotty goes into the distillery business in "Vulcan's Glory," by D.C. Fontana. Fans of the original series will recognize Fontana, who produced and wrote for the show.

In this tale, Fontana has a lot going on. A young Spock is torn between an arranged marriage with the cold and heartless T'Pring and longs to start a relationship with the beautiful widowed Vulcan, T'Pris, on the Enterprise, where he has just joined the crew under Captain Pike. Meanwhile, Pike and the Enterprise are en route to Areta, a planet visited by Pike before and on which he hopes to see some sort of unification between the three distinct groups of inhabitants on the planet. Like Spock, Scotty has also joined the crew of the Enterprise. He immediately finds himself making (and hiding) engine room hooch in a humorous subplot.

As always, the Enterprise is sidetracked on the way to its primary destination. The crew uncovers a highly revered (and long thought lost) emerald called Vulcan's Glory and decide to return it to Vulcan once their business on Areta is complete. Pike beams down to Areta and finds himself caught in the middle of feud between city dwellers and nomads whose children have fallen in love and run off together.

On board the Enterprise, a murder has taken place and the Vulcan's Glory is missing. All clues point to a Vulcan assassin, but which Vulcan would do such an emotionally charged act? Spock, T'Pris, Number One and Doctor Boyce try to figure it out as well as determine what's in the hooch that's making everybody so "happy" so quickly.

Despite a lot of plots and subplots bouncing around, Fontana manages to keep things moving at a solid pace and filters out most of the confusion pretty well. Scotty's misadventure aboard the Enterprise is drenched in classic Star Trek humor. The bickering on Areta is pretty funny at times also. Some might think that Spock is a bit too emotional to truly be himself, but stay with the book until the end and you'll understand what's going on. Don't let the fact that Kirk, Bones, or any of the other crew aren't around for this adventure. Fontana has built up some wonderful characters in Boyce, Number One, and other members of the crew. Pike doesn't get too much development here, but it's nice to see him in action and to see his chemistry build with Spock.

Overall, this is a quick read that's enjoyable and quite funny at times. Original series fans will enjoy it and those who aren't familiar with Trek at all will have no problem following what's going on.

Recommended.

The concept, or should I say concepts, behind this book are excellent. It's a delight to see something truly different, and a novel set during Captain Pike's tenure as captain of the Enterprise certainly qualifies; the only regulars from the original series that we see in this book are Scotty (who mainly shows up in a minor subplot) and Spock, who the story centers around. And while stories centering around Spock are hardly novel, the concept of exploring the background of the character before he met Kirk, et al, is certainly a nice change.

Another concept behind this book is to explore the "hidden" emotional lives of Vulcans. This concept is handled much less well than the background concept; those of us well-versed in the lore of Star Trek know that it is a mistake to believe that Vulcans have no emotions, and we've certainly seen Spock's emotional side before. But Vulcans in general, and Spock in particular, are FAR more circumspect about acknowledging those emotions openly than they are shown to be in this book. Disappointing, because D.C. Fontana ought to know better; she wrote for the original series, including the episode "Journey To Babel", in which she showed a much better grasp of the way Vulcans display (or fail to display) their emotions.

The peeks into the respective personalities of Captain Pike, Number One, and Doctor Boyce was nicely handled, though. I certainly wouldn't mind seeing more books from this time period.

This is just a great Star Trek novel in every way. It provides an incredible amount of insight into the early crew of the enterprise during a very key mission in Spock's career. You also get a refreshing look at a young engineer we're all familiar with. D.C. Fontana - great job!

Keep in mind that I really like and admire the other work done by Fontanna, and I purchased the novel "Vulcan's Glory" because I wanted to read what a published Trek writer "sounded" like... and Fontana had penned some of my favorite Trek episodes (in the original series) including "Journey to Babel" and "This Side of Paradise"; episodes which explored Spock's past and family ties. In "Babel" we first met this mother, Amanda, and in "Paradise" we met one of his loves: Leila Kalomi (played by the actress, Jill Ireland). So, you can imagine how disappointed I was to find that, for the most part, this story sucks!

There's a giant emerald that supposedly represents the "soul of Vulcan", and it took the Vulcans over 4000 years to relocate it?! And when they sent Spock to find it, he finds it in, like, a day. Come on! And the story suggests there's a whole contingent of Vulcans on the Enterprise (when we'd been lead to believe Spock was the ONLY one), and T'Pring is from a family of six kids (when Vulcans are only supposed to have one or two). What the hell? Having other Vulcans on the ship detracts from Spock's "unique" quality onboard; and having the Vulcans multiply like rats is "illogical" given that they come from a desert planet with limited resources. Aside from that, the murder mystery is lame and Scotty's devising of a moonshine still aboard the ship is as annoying side-issue that doesn't lend anything to the story. And we all know what's going to happen to T'Pris as soon as Spock takes a shine to her so... I was REALLY disappointed.

VULCAN'S GLORY covers Spock's - and incidentally Scotty's - first assignment on the Enterprise, under Captain Christopher Pike. Fans of the series will remember Pike and others members of his command staff, Number One and Dr. Boyce, from the series flashback episode or perhaps have seen the original pilot. As the novel opens Spock is summoned back to Vulcan by Sarek who insists that Spock make arrangements concerning his bonding to T'Pring. We are given a glimpse into his relationship with T'Pring which foreshadows the events of 'The Amok Time'. Spock then reports to the Enterprise and meets another Vulcan woman, one who is much different than his fiancee.

Secondary plots concern Scotty who has also just joined the Enterprise as a junior engineer, another involves a missing Vulcan treasure, its' recovery and subsequent theft and yet another explores the backstories of Number One and Capt. Pike.

VULCAN'S GLORY is interesting but seems to suffer from both too much and too little plot. There are several storylines going on here as well as a wealth backstory material. Some of this material is delved into while other areas are just skimmed over. It seems as if Fontana planning either a much longer book or a multi book story arc. Both the Scotty and Pike/Number One stories could have been expanded to their own novels. It is a shame that all these stories were crammed into just the one shorter book.

This book is fantastic. It goes into depth concerning Mr. Spock's early years in Starfleet, his relationship with his mother and father and his service with Captain Pike. The most interesting part of the story, however, is a relationship he developes with a a fellow female Vulcan officer. Fascinating! Read it, you'll love it!

I always like anything about this character if it is well written.

This story hooked me from the very beginning--I found I had a very hard time putting it down. The descriptions were very vivid and I felt I could not only see what was being described, but what the people/aliens were saying. That is always a good quality in a book, in my opinion. It was a very solid story, well written, but there was too much exposition at parts. And at the end it felt like they had run out of time and hurried to close everything up; it was just a little too neat somehow. Also, I think that there were some parts that could have used a little more exploration. But overall, I enjoyed the book and will probably read it again. And I believe it to be a good introduction to the Star Trek universe, as I am a very recent fan and still learning about the series. The information was presented in a smooth, flowing method that made it natural for me to pick up on, but that will not bore readers who are more knowledgeable.

Vulcan's Glory by D.C. Fontana, is Outstanding! Hands down one of the best Vulcan book around. Her depth of charater development is both logical and interesting. I only wish there was more of her books out there. This one has been around for sometime and I had read it years ago. A great read!

Certainly one of the most impressive TOS episodes is the 2-part "The Menagerie." I can't say that I was terribly intrigued by Captain Christopher Pike in that episode (he was basically James T. Kirk all over again), but when I learned that this book fleshed out young Spock's backstory, I decided to give it a read. I wasn't disappointed. Vulcan's Glory shows a side of Spock that is both plausible and surprising, mainly because it focuses on his very complicated love life. The mystery surrounding the gemstone is almost as interesting as the love story. Christopher Pike still didn't do much to set himself apart from Kirk, but I did enjoy reading about his first mate: Number One, a woman bred to genetic perfection.

As for the physical book, I found the font to be of a very generous size, bigger than most paperbacks. My eyes were not strained in the least, and I found it an easy, enjoyable read.